mbox series

[4.4,0/5] DHCP client support when receiving "delayed" replies

Message ID 1554461256-12966-1-git-send-email-patryk.mungai-ndungu.kx@renesas.com (mailing list archive)
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Series DHCP client support when receiving "delayed" replies | expand

Message

Patryk Mungai April 5, 2019, 10:47 a.m. UTC
Dear All,

When running dhcp tests using the 4.4.y (and 4.4.y-cip kernel as well), I
encountered an issue where the dhcp client in the kernel could not get an
IP address when multiple network devices were enabled. It seems that the
current implementation of the dhcp client in the 4.4 kernel is send dhcp
request via device 1 -> wait <1s for response from server on device 1 ->
if no response, switch to device 2 -> repeat process on device 2 ...etc.
When the dhcp server is slow to respond, this means it is impossible to get
a dhcp address.

This series backported from upstream fixes the issue, is it possible
to apply this to 4.4.y and/or 4.4.y-cip?

Thanks,
Patryk


Geert Uytterhoeven (1):
  net: ipconfig: Fix NULL pointer dereference on RARP/BOOTP/DHCP timeout

Thierry Reding (1):
  net: ipconfig: Fix more use after free

Uwe Kleine-König (3):
  net: ipconfig: Support using "delayed" DHCP replies
  net: ipconfig: drop inter-device timeout
  net: ipconfig: fix use after free

 net/ipv4/ipconfig.c | 61 ++++++++++++++++++++++++-----------------------------
 1 file changed, 28 insertions(+), 33 deletions(-)

Comments

Pavel Machek April 6, 2019, 10:38 a.m. UTC | #1
Hi!

> When running dhcp tests using the 4.4.y (and 4.4.y-cip kernel as well), I
> encountered an issue where the dhcp client in the kernel could not get an
> IP address when multiple network devices were enabled. It seems that the
> current implementation of the dhcp client in the 4.4 kernel is send dhcp
> request via device 1 -> wait <1s for response from server on device 1 ->
> if no response, switch to device 2 -> repeat process on device 2 ...etc.
> When the dhcp server is slow to respond, this means it is impossible to get
> a dhcp address.
> 
> This series backported from upstream fixes the issue, is it possible
> to apply this to 4.4.y and/or 4.4.y-cip?

Ok, so first patch adds support for using "delayed" DHCP replies, then
there are three more patches to fix up issues it creates.

Which tells me that maybe this is not quite suitable for -stable.

How long do your dhcp servers take to reply? Can you solve the problem
some other way, like for example increasing timeouts?

Thanks,
									Pavel
Sasha Levin April 6, 2019, 1:53 p.m. UTC | #2
On Fri, Apr 05, 2019 at 11:47:31AM +0100, Patryk Mungai wrote:
>Dear All,
>
>When running dhcp tests using the 4.4.y (and 4.4.y-cip kernel as well), I
>encountered an issue where the dhcp client in the kernel could not get an
>IP address when multiple network devices were enabled. It seems that the
>current implementation of the dhcp client in the 4.4 kernel is send dhcp
>request via device 1 -> wait <1s for response from server on device 1 ->
>if no response, switch to device 2 -> repeat process on device 2 ...etc.
>When the dhcp server is slow to respond, this means it is impossible to get
>a dhcp address.
>
>This series backported from upstream fixes the issue, is it possible
>to apply this to 4.4.y and/or 4.4.y-cip?

This is something that seems more suited for the CIP kernel as it adds
new functionality.

--
Thanks,
Sasha
Patryk Mungai April 9, 2019, 9:10 a.m. UTC | #3
Hello Pavel,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: stable-owner@vger.kernel.org <stable-owner@vger.kernel.org> On
> Behalf Of Pavel Machek
> Sent: 06 April 2019 11:39
> To: Patryk Mungai Ndungu <patryk.mungai-ndungu.kx@renesas.com>
> Cc: stable@vger.kernel.org; davem@davemloft.net; cip-dev@lists.cip-
> project.org
> Subject: Re: [cip-dev] [PATCH 4.4 0/5] DHCP client support when receiving
> "delayed" replies
> 
> Hi!
> 
> > When running dhcp tests using the 4.4.y (and 4.4.y-cip kernel as well), I
> > encountered an issue where the dhcp client in the kernel could not get an
> > IP address when multiple network devices were enabled. It seems that the
> > current implementation of the dhcp client in the 4.4 kernel is send dhcp
> > request via device 1 -> wait <1s for response from server on device 1 ->
> > if no response, switch to device 2 -> repeat process on device 2 ...etc.
> > When the dhcp server is slow to respond, this means it is impossible to get
> > a dhcp address.
> >
> > This series backported from upstream fixes the issue, is it possible
> > to apply this to 4.4.y and/or 4.4.y-cip?
> 
> Ok, so first patch adds support for using "delayed" DHCP replies, then
> there are three more patches to fix up issues it creates.
> 
> Which tells me that maybe this is not quite suitable for -stable.
> 
> How long do your dhcp servers take to reply? 

It varies: the fastest reply I've seen is 0.12931s, the slowest is in the region is just over 1.007s.
In the tests I've run, I measured the time between the kernel sending out the DHCP request and receiving a DHCP offer from the server. After running 50 tests, in around half of them, it takes just over 1s for the DHCP offer to arrive. But this is rarely over 1s +1 jiffie, hence why I think the code is able to cope with it most of the time.

However, the DHCP servers network is not at all loaded (at most only has 4 devices trying to connect to it at once), and yet I've seen this failure multiple times, so I'm not sure what would happen in a loaded network.
I think at least for CIP we need a kernel that is able to cope with however long the server takes to reply.

> Can you solve the problem
> some other way, like for example increasing timeouts?

I've tried increasing CONF_INTER_TIMEOUT to 2Hz and I haven't seen it fail in 50 boots. Though this is an simple workaround, it can prolong boot up time and the DHCP client is still time dependent with regards to listening for a reply on a network device.

Thanks,
Patryk

> 
> Thanks,
> 									Pavel
> --
> (english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
> (cesky, pictures)
> http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html
Greg KH April 24, 2019, 4:44 p.m. UTC | #4
On Sat, Apr 06, 2019 at 09:53:50AM -0400, Sasha Levin wrote:
> On Fri, Apr 05, 2019 at 11:47:31AM +0100, Patryk Mungai wrote:
> > Dear All,
> > 
> > When running dhcp tests using the 4.4.y (and 4.4.y-cip kernel as well), I
> > encountered an issue where the dhcp client in the kernel could not get an
> > IP address when multiple network devices were enabled. It seems that the
> > current implementation of the dhcp client in the 4.4 kernel is send dhcp
> > request via device 1 -> wait <1s for response from server on device 1 ->
> > if no response, switch to device 2 -> repeat process on device 2 ...etc.
> > When the dhcp server is slow to respond, this means it is impossible to get
> > a dhcp address.
> > 
> > This series backported from upstream fixes the issue, is it possible
> > to apply this to 4.4.y and/or 4.4.y-cip?
> 
> This is something that seems more suited for the CIP kernel as it adds
> new functionality.

I agree, this is a new feature.  If someone wants this, they should use
a newer kernel please.  Like 4.19.y :)

thanks,

greg k-h